The cognitive anatomy of moral understanding and the moral education question: A study in the philosophy of moral education

Abstract

This study investigates the problem of contemporary interpretations of the moral education question, as informed by rival moral-philosophical and epistemological traditions. In this study, the moral education question is taken to mean, 'What educational form and content may best assist students in becoming ethically minded and morally good people?' Accordingly, this necessitates a consideration of what is meant by morality and what are the central characteristics of the moral life (i.e. moral philosophical perspectives), as well as how such accounts of morality are seen to relate to the educational aims of knowledge and intellectual development (i.e. underlying epistemology).